Focus Groups and Consumer Surveys you have known

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I have heavily influenced the marketing strategy of the following products:

Bud Light
Dotmusic
Guinness

What about you?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I doubt you on the latter claim; I do not have free Guinness delivered to my house on a regular basis.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:36 (twenty-two years ago)

The Dotmusic focus group was attended exclusively by a large group of my friends (we got the hook-up from a friend who worked for the research company), and thus to perpetuate the illusion that we were in fact a braod cross-section of yoff, we all had to pretend not to know each other for three hours. It was hard!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

xpost: Ned, that whole group was all about "how do we keep Guinness masculine while also being cool and appealing to women?". The answer "by delivering it to Ned's place" did not occur to me at the time.

For the record, the best anyone could come up with was "show people drinking it in half-pint glasses" an "get David Beckham to do a Guinness ad". Doh.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

The answer "by
delivering it to Ned's place" did not occur to me at the time.

Man. :-(

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i've sent in arbitron stuff. also, the canadian tourism board once phone-surveyed me and i spent most of it ranting against hockey, moose, and lumberjack pants. i wouldve felt bad if it wasnt obvious that 99% of the people the poor woman called never gave her the time of day, so at least i could entertain her.

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I did a bunch of them: beer, cigarettes, travel things. I worked at a place in Sydney and helped host them as well - passing out refreshments, etc. There were some gothic type professional focus ringers we could call in pinch.

But the coolest was a British guy I met down there that just did medical testing. He was positively ill from sunburn, pain pills, eye drops, etc. A decently paid human guinea pig.

― andy, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

When Starbuck's was test-marketing a bunch of different possible frappucino flavors some years ago, I was in one of the focus groups that voted for Caramel over Cherry, White Chocolate, and I think Walnut.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

(And when I lived in Amherst, I rarely paid for a movie because you could go to the mall, stand in one place for a couple minutes, and have someone ask you if you wanted to do a fifteen minute focus group for $10. I'd do that, vote on some shampoo or dishwasher detergent or cookie, and then go see Mortal Kombat or some damn thing.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I got a £10 high street gift voucher for attending a focus group session about online shopping. Spot the irony.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 24 March 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been to a couple that had the big wall of mirrors, too... very comforting. I feel like I'm going to break and confess something I didn't do.

― andy, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:05 (twenty-two years ago)

(Or something I did do.)

― andy, Wednesday, 24 March 2004 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I just watched a crappy Molson Canadian ad for five bucks. I took a "while this ad is theoretically OK, me and my beer drinking tastes are far too highbrow for this ad" approach.

― Sym (shmuel), Thursday, 25 March 2004 04:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I've sat through a sitcom pilot that never aired, for advertising purposes. The show was marginally better than what I expected, though count your blessings it never went on the air. The commercials seemed to be rough drafts of actual, broadcastable commercials. The best part about the whole thing was ranting on in the survey (for the TV show) afterward about the little children in this sitcom, as they were your typical sitcom know-it-all whiny brats who seemed to try too hard to appear "cute".

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Thursday, 25 March 2004 04:44 (twenty-two years ago)

the rough versions of the commercials sound intriguing!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 04:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Most of them were basically rough sketches that were animated with the usual commercial-quality voiceovers as accompaniment. The rest were actual taped commercials that seemed to need additional post-production to get rid of little bits of things here and there. You know, like those running timer thingys. :)

(Apologies for not making much sense here, FYI. I took some allergy pills and they've just knocked me for a loop.)

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:26 (twenty-two years ago)

no, that makes total sense!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooh, fantastic, then! *cough* Glad it made sense to you. *cough*

(These pills aren't working for me. Drat.)

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:31 (twenty-two years ago)

what kind are they? i favour reactine myself.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:32 (twenty-two years ago)

(Advance apologies for COMPLETELY changing the course of this thread, FYI.)

Um (*fishes out pills from purse*) they're generic OTC pills, a mixture of antihistamine and diphenhydramine HCl that's supposed to "compare to Benadryl dye-free allergy softgels", as the packaging states. Maybe if I took more than just the two pills I've taken thus far they'd work, but I wouldn't dare take them again unless I could afford to take a nap. Or maybe they won't work. Time will tell, naturally.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I've gotten $75 + treats just for talking about my e-bay use and looking at some e-bay ads for two hours. That was the best one.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 25 March 2004 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I got 50 quid for talking about a phone answering service/life oprganising thing controlled by phone. Getting paid to slag off a product that would never work was great, an dthe looks on their faces, they seemed actually hurt, I was amazed

― chris (chris), Thursday, 25 March 2004 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

range rover
tanqueray

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 25 March 2004 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha - Kerry I did eBay too, and got paid the same amount. Was yours organized by "Smith research"?

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 25 March 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

i got drafted in the harrispoll online stuff after entering info about gwb's approval rating. i thought it would be more of the same, but nowadays its all cell phones, banking, online shopping, and possible taco bell combo proposals. i actually filled out this thing to test drive cars, but i doubt i'll be hearing from them anytime soon.

i also go to alot of test screenings. living in LA has some perks..

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Thursday, 25 March 2004 18:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Insurance agency software, insurance company web interfaces, good lord my job just keeps getting less and less interesting.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 25 March 2004 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

Scottish Power say they will pay me £50 in cash if I go to a focus group meeting for an hour and a half on Monday night. Should I believe them? It's on the south side, but £50!

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 25 November 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

six years pass...

making $200 to drink beer and make video blogs about it for 3 hours

― A41 (admrl), Wednesday, 17 August 2011 20:49 (fourteen years ago)

I made $100 to talk about those coin counting machines.

I was also sucked into one when I was walking through a mall, I was promised cash money by the v v v pretty girl running the survey. Turns out I had to pluck at underwear waistbands attached to a piece of plywood for 10 minutes and got a whopping two dollars for my effort.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 20:50 (fourteen years ago)

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